Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / The Theology of Pixar's WALL-E || Popcorn Parenting || SLP461

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The Theology of Pixar's WALL-E || Popcorn Parenting || SLP461 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and thank you so much for downloading episode 461 of the Speak Life podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to give you a taste of popcorn parenting.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what that is already, before Nate Morganlock, our creative director, joined us, one of the things he did was a podcast called Popcorn Parenting with his friend and also friend of Speak Life, James Carey.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of started during lockdown, and they looked at Disney and Pixar films mostly from a Christian perspective and thinking about some of the theological themes in those films and how parents can discuss them with their kids after watching them.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a podcast that kind of went out, and we're in the process of bringing it under the wing of Speak Life on the Reformed Mythologist YouTube channel, which is where Nate puts a lot of his thoughts about storytelling.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go to youtube.com forward slash at Reformed Mythologist, we're in the process of releasing the popcorn parenting uh episodes on there with some visuals to accompany them.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought if you're unfamiliar with popcorn parenting, I'd give you a taste of it in this episode.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you're about to hear their conversation about Wally.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've seen the film Wally, it's one of the best Pixar films.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely superb.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is probably my personal favourite or one of my favourite episodes of popcorn parenting.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because believe me, after hearing this, you will never see the film Wally the same way ever again.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear more of Nate talking about story and storytelling and uh delving into the themes, the theological themes of popular franchises and things like that, I can recommend a few episodes in our back catalogue.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Episode 431, What Can Franchises Tell Us About Jesus?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that was focused on Harry Potter, and it was actually Paul Feese's last podcast with us.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Very sad.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Reality and Other Stories with Matt Lillycrapp and Peter Dre.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's episode 421, an interview that Nate did with them.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And an interview with Nate himself, the power of story.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of uh it gives you a good insight into how he approaches stories as a reformed mythologist.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's episode 372.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So just a few episodes in the back catalogue there that you can check out if you want to get more from Nate and others on the theology of popular culture.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna hand straight over to Nate Morganlock and James Carey for their discussion about Wally.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, the people who leave the earth for a time go and enjoy a luxury cruise.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically a cruise ship that they all go on.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's all gonna be entertaining and fun, and they can indulge themselves yet further, and then eventually they can just come back and do the same thing again.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the the assumption is that human nature is not going to change.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Pop Comparenting, a podcast about movies, mythology, and the messiah.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm James Carey and I'm joined as ever by the one and only reformed mythologist, Nate Morganlock.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, Nate.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Hello Jan! It's great to be talking to you via the interweb.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we're talking about a brilliant, brilliant movie today that I'm very excited about.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: It is the absolute masterpiece that is Pixar's WALL E.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: WALL-E.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's the film.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: It is a masterpiece to the point where I watched it again last night and I thought if I'd made that movie, I'd just retire, because I would think I'm not going to do better than that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, especially given that Toy Story 2 is in the past, because that is the perfect movie.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's one for another episode.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Here are some cold hard facts about WALE, which was released uh in June 2008, and it runs for 97 minutes, and it costs 180 million dollars to make.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: And at the box office it took half a billion, uh 533 million, and I'm sure it's been making uh more, uh it's probably made that again uh in the last 12 years.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was directed, produced, screenplay, story by Andrew Stanton and uh Jim Reardon and Pete Doctor are sort of between them responsible uh for this movie.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: We should do an inner world, shouldn't we?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: In a world, or rather, on a world in which human beings have desecrated all that is created with their wasteful consumption and detritus, um, Earth has been abandoned.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the people of the earth have climbed aboard um by and large starliners, and the quote is we'll clean up the mess while you're away.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's supposed to be a five-year voyage on the Axiom, which is the uh the greatest of the Starliner fleet, and the people of Earth will take a little break off the earth whilst the WALL-E machines um clean it all up and get rid of all the rubbish, they're waiting for the earth to be renewed, and then finally, when it will be renewed, uh they can re-colonize, repopulate the earth once more.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And what's really interesting is that it doesn't feel like an eco movie because as you start watching it, it is horrifying at the start, and you do really think, oh, because it's recognizably Western civilization, and it is absolutely skyscraper high with rubbish.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that really comes across, and then that is they really don't dwell on that, and they kind of move on and tell a much more interesting story.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it but interestingly, the people who leave the earth for a time go and enjoy a luxury cruise.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically a cruise ship that they all go on, it's all going to be entertaining and fun, and they can indulge themselves yet further, and then eventually they can just come back and do the same thing again.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the the assumption is that human nature is not going to change, that we'll ruin the planet, and then we'll just go and you know, but they try and populate the moon, but of course, they you know, Wally flies past that at one point.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it does have this sense that humans are their own worst enemies.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: We just you know, we we make a mess and then we move on, and we don't really seem to repent of it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just an interesting take on the kind of yeah, as you say, the Western world and the way that we just want more and more stuff, and we're you know just very wasteful.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: So the aim of this podcast is ultimately uh to give you a little bit of uh stuff to think about so that you can talk to your kids about the movie, having watched it together.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: So don't be alarmed by any of the things that Nate says uh in the rest of the podcast.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is not stuff that you're meant to be telling your kids necessarily, but it's kind of it's kind of uh cheat notes, uh York notes, background reading.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a head start, and actually your conversation may go in a completely different direction, and that's completely fine.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the basic rules are still very much after you've seen it, ask them what was your favorite bit.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: What did you like?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who did you like?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: What did they say that was funny?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: What did they say that was fun?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Did you cry?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get angry?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Did you like the ending?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just normal questions about films and books and things, James.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very normal questions, and then you could normally get quite a long way with a question, why?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: What was your favourite bit?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh I like that bit.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: What was what bit was sad?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, this bit.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Why was that sad?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that was so we we had we had a chat about it afterwards, and it didn't go in the direction I thought it would go in at all.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what happened?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, only in that we we we had a quick uh WhatsApp consultation beforehand, and I said, Any idea what I should be asking them afterwards?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you said, Does this story remind you of anything?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And afterwards I said to my kids, does that story remind you of anything?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, um I suppose it's a bit like you know, when people think that what they do doesn't really matter, but actually it really does matter later.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like you know, we'd made a mess and it didn't seem to matter.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh, you know, and also people think it doesn't matter what you think about Jesus, but it does matter, and I'm just like, oh okay, wow, this is not okay, you know, and so the thing that really struck me, and we ended up talking about was how the people on the ship were presumably happy, but there was a real sense of futility to their consumption.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did they say that?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did your girls actually say there was a real sense of futility to their consumption?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: They they did, they did not.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would love it if they'd said that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I think it was yeah, but I think it was it was interesting.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what struck us particularly, yeah, uh, was was the fact that we're actually made to do stuff, and in the movies it's a revelation that the captain for the captain actually has to do something and that he then wants to do it, and he's sort of angry that he's been you know rejected and frozen out by his own technology.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we talked a bit about that, and that is interesting, that whole thing of care for what you wish for, and that maybe what you re what you want isn't what you need, and just that challenge for kids to come to a realization that you know just sitting with your feet up, eating snacks and drinking a cupcake and a cup, watching a screen might be fun for a little bit of time, but for 700 years, James, that's not a very good way to spend your time.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the fact that they're not even doing sport, they're watching robots exactly, isn't that brilliant?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I it's one of the things I love about the film is the way that they they tee up, you'll like this, they tee up the life on the axiom by showing you real human beings doing activities like they were on a cruise ship.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a guy who's playing golf, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then of course, when they actually show you what's happening on the axiom once once Wally and Eve get there, there's a guy on his like lazy boy hover chair who's literally playing the game and controlling the robot to do the thing that he was supposed to do when you think.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, isn't that remarkable?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that those chairs like they set that up because they say, with our hover chairs, even grandma can join in the fun.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like the old lady who, for you know, reasons of you know, sort of just getting old, can't join in, and then you get there, and literally everyone's decided, oh, I need a hover chair.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's brilliant, it's such a brilliant understanding of the the the sorts of ways that people think this is what we like.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: You you set the bar that low, you give people the option, and people just start to slide into this, yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just lazy, and and what one of the things we noticed whilst we were watching it, because we watched it this week as well, and um we were our sofa has those things where you pull it back and the legs go up so you can recline.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we're literally eating popcorn, staring at a screen with our feet up, judging them for sitting in a lazy boy um eating whilst watching a screen.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it it's just so condemning as a as a film, but so so kind of gentle with it.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't feel like you're being preached at at all, you know.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's just fantastic.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the other reflection was also, I think the first time I watched it, the thing that is is astonishing, and the thing I remembered from it the most is the fact that those two robots have more humanity than almost any other character I can remember seeing.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Wally's desire for companionship is so moving, it's so you know, and he just wants to hold Ian's hand.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so simple.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like I'm afraid you know, my my oldest is just like that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: She just wants to hold your hand, yeah, yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and she'll she'll take any excuse she can just to hold your hand.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's beautiful, isn't it?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, and when I was describing my my wife couldn't watch the the rest rest of the movie because she had to go somewhere, and she'd seen it before, but when she said, How does it end?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Can you remind how does it end for all the people on the ship when they come back to Earth?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: I said, It's kind of weird how that kind of doesn't matter because I guess I guess they figure it out, um, yeah, because it's so not about them, it's about this these two robots.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's incredible.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's an interesting thing because there's uh what should I have said?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's just that the the closing credits they go through that which are beautiful as well.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: They take all these kind of classic artworks throughout history and then kind of show the human beings and the robots rebuilding civilization and almost like they've started again.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna almost redo human history, but maybe we'll get it right this time, and that I just you know I it's sort of a stunning idea that maybe we shouldn't give up on the world.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: The world isn't going to be completely lost, but it might be restored and renewed.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: It so so when when the I mean the the the plot twist, I suppose, is that they decided fairly early on that they were never gonna come back to the earth, and um Otto or Autopilot, he says he kind of shows this classified film to the the captain, and uh Shelby Forthright, the CEO of um of By and Large, um he sort of says, Oh, it don't worry, just stay up there, enjoy yourselves.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: The the world's you know it's it's it's all gone.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: We can't fix it, we can't fix it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what we feel at that moment is so there is no hope for the world.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you're saying?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are you saying there's no chance, that's it, we've it's ruined and lost forever, and there's something about Pixar's brilliance in terms of their storytelling, is that they want they say maybe that maybe there is something seriously wrong with the world, but maybe there's hope for it too, yeah.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they speak better than they know at one level, but yeah, I it there's that whole kind of cosmic scale of the film in terms of human nature and the world and all that sort of stuff, but to go back to um this romantic is it's a romantic comedy, it's a dystopian romantic comedy between two robots.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that's what Wally is, and Wally as a character, he's really good, and we talked about this before, but how writing a kind of innocent or good character is really tricky because it they they might not come across as very likable or relatable, but Wally, because he's kind of vulnerable and lonely and kind of innocent, we're all on his side to start with, and he loves art and he's listening to you know, um uh hello dolly or something, isn't it?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I didn't know what film it was, but he just he loves little things, he loves, you know, plastic forks, plastic spoons, sporks, how do they fit in between the two?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: He loves that little uh bat with a ball on the end of an elastic thing, he loves rubrics cubes, and he so he loves the arts and he he he appreciates things.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's interested in beauty and and then of course he falls in love with with Eve and and so he's kind of desperate to to go with her.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I think he is a character he's so well written, and maybe the fact that he doesn't speak a lot is helps that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think it's similar to some other characters you get, like like Paddington Bear.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Paddington Bear is a similarly innocent character who sort of exposes other people as you go along.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, what should I have been saying?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well what you know what what give us some other ways of thinking about this movie and how it maybe relates to Eden, the garden, and the the second garden, the garden to come.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so did you when I said because I I was purposefully uh ambiguous when I was texting you yesterday.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I just said, does it remind you of anything?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So in your head, what were you thinking it might remind you of?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess there was something Eden about it.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you know, and I guess there's something revelation about it as well, the second garden about it and the restoration.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean the fact that she's called Eve, you know, is kind of a bit of a a bit of a shove in that direction.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And but but then the fact that the the the clip, you know, the Nate Morgan Locke house rules of you watch the end credits to the bitter end.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I mean that is heavily rewarded in this movie, isn't it?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's really it's it's stunning.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And but what we what were you thinking of?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So so here's this is my view on on Wally is that the film Wally is a retelling of Noah's Ark.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the earth how did I not see that?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's but it's so clear, it's so clear.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: The earth is flooded with pollution, right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Human consumption and greed and indulgence has meant that the earth must it sort of is gonna be covered in filth, in in judgment, if you like.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna reap the the kind of reward of their of their sin, which is that earth is no longer inhabitable.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the solution is everyone's gonna get on a ship, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get on the axiom, right, and you're gonna stay on the axiom until the pollution has been dealt with, right?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from the ship, you send out a white bird, if you like, a dove.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the white bird is sent out to retrieve vegetation, a plant.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: So Eve comes from the axiom down and finds after exploding, like shooting so many things, and yeah, yeah, knocking over all those oil tankers and all the sort of stuff, and then she finds the plant.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the the dove, if you like, finds the olive leaf, and now that's directive is complete, right?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So she's now gonna go back, yeah, and the assumption is once she gets back with the leaf, okay, the flood waters have receded, all the pollution's gone, and we can now repopulate the earth.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, very basically, that is the story of Noah's Ark.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the question, I suppose, that I mean, we'll come back to the dove thing in a minute because I think that's like incredible when you look through the Bible and think about doves.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: But when they get onto the ship and there's this question of, is the earth too far gone?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do they just stay in on the ship forever and forget about the earth?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just, you know, pretend it didn't happen and just leave it to decay.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about God's promise that he gives to Noah that he won't destroy the earth, that he did save a remnant, that it even though the all of man's heart was full of sin and and and depravity and selfishness and greed, even from childhood, that God still loves it despite that and will redeem it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so Noah and his you know family and the animals on the ark becomes this picture of God's ability to save a few people, despite the fact that He's gonna judge, and this plan to make a new world, a new creation where you can repopulate it and you can sort of bring about the joy and the and the and the glory again.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: So On the kind of macro level of the story of Wally, it is essentially Noah's Ark.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the fact she's called Eve, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is brilliant.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Why does Adam, who's responsible for naming things in Genesis, why does Adam name his wife Eve?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, because she came from a man's rib?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't really answer the question, though, does it?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's why she's called woman, because she was drawn out of man.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the reason she's called Eve.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know, I know.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Adam's Adam just he just always really liked the name.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: It just goes with Adam and Eve.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like it sounds like they sounds right.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I I guess there's a theological reason too, right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, Genesis, Genesis 3, um, after the fall, and and sorry, after Adam and Eve have eaten from the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God comes to judge Adam and Eve and the serpent.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually in the opposite order, it's serpent, then Eve, and then Adam.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the very final thing he says to Adam is, For dust you are, to dust you will return.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: You will surely die.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next sentence is, and Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Eve means living, basically.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So God literally just said, For dust you are, to dust you will return.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Adam named his wife Eve, for she would become the mother of all the living.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, Are you is that kind of sarcastic?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't you trying to kind of like you've literally just been told you will die?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when God spoke to Eve, he says, you know, from your offspring, the I will put enmity between the offspring of the serpent and the woman.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, he says it to the serpent, but he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: So the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman are going to be in conflicts throughout the rest of the Bible.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the when Adam calls his wife Eve, he's saying, No, there's hope in the face of judgment.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's hope, despite the fact that everything's gone wrong, because there will come someone born of the woman.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: There is a chance that, well, not just a chance, there is a promise that things will be restored.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what's kind of so brilliant about the fact that they connect in Wally, they connect Eve and the hope of the living with the dove which goes out to find the olive branch.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you're thinking, okay, so we're gonna supposed to see some sort of connection between this hope from from the Garden of Eden and this hope that comes in the story of Noah, and we're supposed to put them together.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's your next question, James, which I did put it on the WhatsApp, but your conversation went in a different direction, and that's fine, and that's okay.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to worry.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Please affirm me, please affirm me.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: But where else do you see a dove in the Bible?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, oh yes, so we see the Holy Spirit descending like a dove.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like a dove.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: At the baptism of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: So coming out of the water and receiving the dove, this is the hope for the new creation.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is the hope that the world is not gonna be just completely annihilated and God doesn't love us anymore.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: The hope of the nations is that Jesus Christ has come and is about to go and save us.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And back to Wally, and to see that in the story, Wally and this hopeful character gets connected to the character of Eve, who who to be honest, I mean, she's she's beautiful, but she's cruel and she's brutal, right?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: She can destroy everything, and yet she softens to Wally and sees his his kind of love and sees his compassion and sees his tenderness.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the story the the character who goes through the biggest change in the film of Wally is Eve.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's her movie, isn't it?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And she's kind of convinced, and that's why it's such a brilliant romantic comedy, because she you know, she tries to kill him several times, and eventually the these two together will be integral to the the hope of the world.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I I yeah, it it's just such a br and the fact that it does this storytelling with so few words is just remarkable.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, most people who watch Wally do get excited about it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think people tend to forget it quite quickly.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I think I'd forgotten and not realised how good it was until I watched it a second time.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and watching it a second time around, I'm just thinking, I I don't think I've seen many better movies in my life than that movie.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah it's so good.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um, so in a way, we had very different experiences talking about it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't you just can we just wrap up and just sort of say how important it is that you don't have to have a structured conversation that lands on a Christian truth within 45 minutes of having seen this film?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because if if you've watched this film together, they will remember you watching the film together for for years, yeah, yeah, and they'll probably see it again and see something different, and there may be a conversation you have in eight years' time.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, and and that whole thing of the pressures off, if you're we and we've talked about this before, the the challenge of of being a Sunday school teacher with a group of children is that you've got 30 minutes or maybe more to get a thing taught to them and illustrated and all that, and there's a the there's a central teaching point, and there's all this kind of pressure, and parenting doesn't work like that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Parenting is this it to it is a journey, and it you it's it's over you know a decade or more that you spend this time discussing these sorts of things, and they may come up.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I I just to encourage people, I suppose, that these films can become a part of your family discussion or part of your your your conversations together, is that the quotations, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wally is full of them, foreign contaminant, directive, wall, and even just saying things in those kind of silly robotic ways is bringing back what a joyful time that was watching that film, and may inspire you to talk about some more of about it or um to watch it again or or whatever it is.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I think I the reason we're picking the films we're picking for this podcast is because they are all worthy of re-watching several times, and if a film lands for you and your family, if that becomes something that you revisit a few times, then the conversation at some point is gonna go deeper, yeah.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this podcast is designed so that if it were to go deeper, you've already got an idea of where else it might go.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: That conversation, but it's it's not, as you say, it's not about within 45 minutes of the closing credits, you've got to have taught them this, but also see that the Bible picks up on these same sorts of themes as the as the truly great transcendent modern storytellers of our age, the big story is is the Christian story.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're supposed to fall in love with these characters, you're supposed to love Wally.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself why do we love him?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: What's so great about him, and one of the things that's so great about him is that he's hopeful and he's he's compassionate, he's kind, and and and those are qualities that we want in our children, and those are um you know, not that they should we want to sort of divorce them from their origin, and and where we discover that in the Bible, but that Wally's a great role model in some ways, you know, and your kids are going to want role models, they're going to have them whether they they're they're supposed to or not, and his hopefulness and his his um his love of beautiful things, and his perseverance, he loves investigating, he loves scientists, he's playful, he's curious, it's brilliant, he's absolutely fantastic.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want to interject here by saying that this is sort of the end of the show, but there is a bit extra at the end.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Nate's got some extra little nuggets, which I wanted to give you the option of having a listen to.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: So after we wrap up, if you want to hold the line for a bit, there'll be some extra treats for you there.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, thanks Nate.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you, Jam.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: Speak to you soon.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: Bye bye.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, bye.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that some people like have a bit of an issue with the fact that sometimes we use long words and all that sort of stuff, and maybe it's a bit highfalutin.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: But there you go.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: You couldn't just use the word posh.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: You had to use the word highfalutin.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: I still think even your pretentious words are pretentious.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I said it with the the missing G at the end, like it was some kind of cowboy thing.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have a G at the end, it's not highfalutin, it's highfalutin, isn't it?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like all good DVD releases, we have previously deleted scenes, and this is that bit now.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had to do um some study in Hebrew, and one of the books that we had to look at was the book of Jonah.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I read through the book of Jonah, and it's brilliant, it's absolutely amazing, and lots of our kids will know the book of Jonah really, really, really, really well.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why it works really well for kids is because there's some really good, solid story elements, props and settings and things like that.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a boat, there's a big fish, there's a vine, there's a worm, there's a sun, all this sort of stuff, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So whilst I'm studying the book of Jonah, I realised that every element of creation from Genesis 1 is in the story of Jonah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got the cattle are referred to, so you've got the livestock, yeah, you've got the fish of the sea are referred to, uh, you've got the land and the sea and the and and the sky, that's kind of talked about.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like you've got the storm, so you've got the plant that grows up to provide the shade, you've got the worm that creeps along, you've got the sun.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I sit there and I'm reading through it, and I'm thinking to myself, James, where are the birds?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: There aren't any birds.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: There are no birds in the book of Jonah.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started writing this paper to say there's no birds in the book of Jonah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's really weird.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then, mind blown, the name Jonah is Hebrew for dove.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Boom.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Boom.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now you do the whole book of Jonah again, and you see that God sent his dove to the people of Nineveh to proclaim a message of hope, or well, a message of judgment in a way.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's obviously connected with hope and judgment.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: How by the way, how far did you get into how many words had you written about there are no birds in Jonah?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: No birds at all.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're full, Jimmy.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me just check that.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it was brilliant.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I then went back and I read through the account of of the flood story and when when Noah sends out the birds and he sends out the Jonah.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I then was I then wrote Jonah chapter one as though Dr.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Zeus had written it, and it was called The Dove Without Love.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it was basically all about this like God sent this dove to get up from his nest and go and tell the people all this sort of stuff.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really good fun.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I suggest you you should rewrite almost everything as though Dr.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Zeus had written it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and the Dr.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: Zeus Bible, that's a good idea.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's and D Siv.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the brilliant thing was to is to see part of the reason why so got Jonah's the only one who does anything wrong, who goes against God's command or his appointment in the book of Jonah.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the sort of the the tension is will Jonah be as compassionate and gracious and and hopeful in the face of judgment as God is?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Will he think that repentance ought to be granted even to the um the Ninevehites?